Enviro-Hysteria

My blog sometimes writes itself.  I have begun the practice of posting responses to email correspondence that I receive from friends and family in which I take an opposing position.  I take care not to identify the recipient of my correspondence since in this day and age of doxxing or otherwise outing, I do not wish to cause damage to someone else's livelihood or reputation but at the same time, I will not hesitate to respond with an appropriate counterargument.  In this case, the recipient had sent me some arguments on climate change and the suggestion that I read a book in which the author proposes that the solution is to radically reduce human consumption and, presumably, with a similar reduction in economic activity (after I had forwarded a presentation by Lars Peter Hansen on climate modeling).  Below is my response:

Dear ______:

Happy 4^th  of July,  if in fact you are celebrating.  I no longer take saying that for granted since it appears that a significant part of our nation is quite unhappy over the nation’s founding. 

But as to Lars Peter Hansen, it is certainly the case that he is not as effervescent as, say, the patron goddess of the climate change religion, Greta Thunberg.   To be sure, he does not present with as much flair and drama.  But he did win a Nobel Prize in economics, with his work centered around risk and modeling.

Which brings me to the point of the proposal, which, without reading the entire book, suggests that the solution to climate change (if, in fact, it has anything to do with human activity) lies in radically reducing human consumption, and, logically, economic activity.

An analysis of climate change actually consists of three independent parts, which must be viewed independently and together in order to formulate a sensible approach.   The issue I have, without reading the book (and I will at some future time) is that it jumps right to a proposed solution, which is likely the very worst possible solution to climate change.

But before I explain why, let me tell you why I have a high level of skepticism over the whole issue. The environmental hysterics have a perfect track record.  They have been consistently wrong for over 50 years.  Not just wrong once.  And not just a little bit wrong.  Spectacularly wrong.  The Godfather of Environmental Whiffs is Paul Ehrlich.  I still have the book for which I prepared a book report in 7^th grade. In Population Resources Environment, Ehrlich proposed Nazi-like restrictions on population growth because of the fallacious “carrying capacity” of the earth.  He predicted that if nothing was done, we would face mass starvation on the planet, among other horribles, by the mid 1980’s.  None of that occurred.  By 2016 in fact, abject poverty had been reduced from about 40% of the world population at the time Ehrlich made his claims, to about 10%.   Rather than an overpopulation, many countries are now facing a population swoon.  China, Russia, Japan, and much of Europe are not reproducing at replacement rate and are having terrible demographic issues as a result.   Poland and Hungary are engaged in various incentives so that women will have more babies.  Had the world’s nations followed Ehrlich’s prescription, it would even be in more desperate demographic shape.  Worse, Ehrlich’s proposals relied on enforcement mechanisms that the Third Reich would have been proud of.

Ehrlich was the first enviro-flop, but certainly not the last.  Enviro-hysteria is nothing, if not consistent. The hole in the ozone layer was supposed to go global and we were all going to fry like bacon, remember?  The hole magically healed with the elimination of fluorocarbons.  Then there was the hysteria over acid rain.  Acid rain was going to denude all trees and other foliage in North America by the mid 1990’s and poison all the lakes and rivers.  As I write this, and look out my window, all the trees have bright green leaves and I just got back from Bass Pro Shop where people were stocking up on fishing gear, so we apparently still have some fish in our lakes and streams.   Then, there was “peak oil.”   “Peak Oil” has apparently been supplanted by “Systemic Racism” as the apparition issue de jure.  Because oil is a finite commodity, and we already had found the easy-to-get-to stuff, our economies would have to adjust to a scarce and expensive commodity.  Again, none of that came to pass.  No one talks about “peak oil” anymore.  We are literally drowning in the stuff.  Technological advances such as horizontal drilling and fracking made yet another enviro-scare not come true.

The environmental movement boasts a forecasting track record so poor that economists and weather forecasters look like soothsayers in comparison.

But we only have to look at our current catastrophe to see how “science” and policy based on “models” interact, especially when “experts” and international bodies are involved, as is the case with climate change.  We were initially told by W.H.O. that COVID19 could not be transmitted human-to-human.  The W.H.O. then told us that China self reported the virus and that turned out to be false.  Then, relying on models predicting 2 million deaths, we shut an entire economy down.  The initial models turned out to be off not by 5 or 10% but by 1000% or more.  Worse, we have terrible and extremely unreliable data, as deaths by other causes are lumped into the data.  Initially, we were told that the death rate might be as high as 2%.  It’s really probably around .3%, and much less among those younger than 65. And if you throw out the deaths that were CAUSED by putting infected people into nursing homes, it may be even less.  We were told that it could survive on surfaces for 9 days and be able to be transmitted that way.  Then we were told that transmission from a surface was rare.  Dr. Fauci first said masks were largely symbolic.  Now, he wants us to wear them in public at all times.  Most recently, Dr. Fauci said that we should not “balance lives against the economy” which tells you that he doesn’t understand risk assessment at all.  We do that in all things, like driving cars.  And we MUST do that with COVID19. The “deaths” of despair,” i.e. suicide, drug overdoses, alcohol related deaths, deaths due to social discord, are piling up and our children are being prevented from receiving an education while the “experts” are advising us to “play it safe.”

COVID19 provides insight into risk assessment and risk balancing of science and policy, and we see how awful, misguided, and unnecessarily damaging to peoples’ lives when poorly understood science is met with bureaucratic policy blunders.

After the disastrous management of COVID19—the inaccurate and misleading measurement, widely incorrect model predictions, and catastrophic policy response, does any thinking person really believe that all of these aspects (and you need ALL of them to work properly) will do any better in reducing global temperatures by a degree or two in 100 years, especially given the track record of the environmental hysterics so far?  The COVID19 modeling was as if the team lined up for a field goal and kicked it into the stands at midfield.  What faith do you have that the climate change crew will do any better?

Finally, it is fine if people want to voluntarily reduce their consumption of certain goods.  They are free to do so now.  But any government mandate or coercion that would require that involves the kind of tyrannical government that I will resist with every fiber of my body until my last breath.

Lars Peter Hansen may not be the most exciting person to listen to, but he is skilled at inducing a little epistemic humility before we are condemned to living in one room shacks with our allotment of rice and beans that the environmentalists would like to place us in.  It is the opposite strategy, a vibrant, free and innovative economy that is most likely to lead to less environmentally impactful energy technologies.